I can highly recommend John Hirst at Laker Legal solicitors in Lancaster. He was superb from start to finish dealing with a very complex child arrangements case for me. A really decent guy and an excellent family law solicitor who genuinely cares about his clients. John was fully up to speed with my case at all times and we got the outcome we wanted.
Laker Legal website privacy policy
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Laker Legal Solicitors Ltd’s Privacy Policy Notice
Here at Laker Legal Solicitors, we take great care in respecting your privacy and we are committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform as to what steps we take to protect your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and will inform you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you following the latest new laws on data protection following GDPR.
INDEX
1. IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE / PURPOSE OF NOTICE
2. THE DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
3. HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED
4. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA
5. DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA
6. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS
7. DATA SECURITY
8. DATA RETENTION
9. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
10. GLOSSARY
1. IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE/PURPOSE OF THIS PRIVACY NOTICE
This privacy notice aims to give you information on how our company collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website or in connection with instructing this firm to use our services.
This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.
It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices, such as our terms of use and cookie policy, and is not intended to override them.
CONTROLLER
Laker Legal Solicitors Ltd is the controller and is responsible for your personal data.
The Director responsible for Data Compliance is John Hirst. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights please contact the Data Compliance Officer, John Hirst, using the details set out below:
CONTACT DETAILS
Our full details are:
Laker Legal Solicitors Ltd
Email address: info@lakerlegal.co.uk
Postal address: 2 Sir Thomas Storey House, West Road, Lancaster LA1 5PE
01524 753040
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please ensure that you contact us in the first instance.
CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY NOTICE AND YOUR DUTY TO INFORM US OF CHANGES
This version was last updated on 25th May 2018.
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.
THIRD-PARTY LINKS
This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
2. THE DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data)
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together AS follows:
Identity Data includes [first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender].
Contact Data includes [billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers].
Financial Data includes [bank account and payment card details].
Transaction Data includes [details about payments to and from you and other details of services you have purchased from us].
Technical Data includes [internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website].
Profile Data includes your introduction method to Laker Legal Solicitors e.g. Internet Search Engine
Usage Data includes [information about how you use our website and services].
We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.
We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.
IF YOU FAIL TO PROVIDE PERSONAL DATA
Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with legal services). In this case, we may have to cancel or refuse to provide the service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.
3. HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you :
- apply / enquire to use our services;
- complete our Contact Us Form on our website
- send us an email or call us to enquire about our services
- give us some feedback.
- using our legal services
Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive aggregated technical data about you from various third parties however we do not store this information.
4. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
PURPOSES FOR WHICH WE WILL USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA
We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.
| Purpose/Activity | Type of data | Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest |
| To register you as a new customer | (a) Identity (b) Contact |
Performance of a contract with you |
| To process and deliver your order including: (a) Manage payments, fees and charges (b) Collect and recover money owed to us |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Financial (d) Transaction (e) Marketing and Communications |
(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us) |
| To manage our relationship with you which will include: (a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy (b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey |
(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Marketing and Communications |
(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services) |
| To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data) | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical |
(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation |
| To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences | (a) Technical (b) Usage |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy) |
CHANGE OF PURPOSE
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.
5. DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA
We may have to share your personal data with External Third Parties for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above. We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
6. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS
We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).
7. DATA SECURITY
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
In 2018, we obtained Cyber Essentials Certification. Cyber Essentials is a UK government scheme encouraging organisations to adopt good practice in information security. It includes an assurance framework and a set of security controls to protect information from threats coming from the internet. It was developed in collaboration with industry partners, including the Information Security Forum (ISF), the Information Assurance for Small and Medium Enterprises Consortium (IASME) and the British Standards Institution (BSI), and is endorsed by the UK Government. Obtaining Cyber Essentials Certification displays Laker Legal Solicitors’ commitment to keeping client data secure and confidential.
We also utilise Egress Switch Email Encryption that allows the sending and receiving of confidential client emails. As well as using the service internally to send confidential information to other employees of Laker Legal, the service is provided free of charge to clients if they opt to use it.
All Laker Legal Solicitors’ Employee laptop and desktop PC hard disk drives are encrypted using AES-256bit encryption. Loss or theft of a device would result in no utilisable data available for non-Laker Legal Solicitors employees.
All client data is stored internally, and on our Client Matter System. Confidentiality agreements exist for all Laker Legal Solicitors’ employees, and third-party software providers that can potentially access sensitive personal data.
8. DATA RETENTION
HOW LONG WILL YOU USE MY PERSONAL DATA FOR?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements. By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for 6 years after they cease being customers/clients of the firm.
9. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You can
- Request access to your personal data
- Request correction of your personal data
- Request erasure of your personal data
- Object to processing of your personal data
- Request restriction of processing your personal data.
- Request transfer of your personal data.
- Right to withdraw consent
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us to discuss data access.
NO FEE USUALLY REQUIRED
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
WHAT WE MAY NEED FROM YOU
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
TIME LIMIT TO RESPOND
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests.
If this is the case we will inform you within one month of the receipt of your request to explain why the extension is necessary.
10. GLOSSARY
LAWFUL BASIS
Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.
External Third Parties means
- Service providers acting as processors based in the EEA who provide IT and system administration services
- Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the EEA who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
- HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS
You have the right to:
- Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
- Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
- Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
- Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
- Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
- Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
- Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
